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This is an extremely long and opaque article, and we've deleted some sections that do not come to bear on the issue at hand. We shall try to wade through it to pull out the salient points.
Warfield seems to be the source of all cessationist thought, so it is good that we get to the bottom of the issue. We would hope he would be able to provide the Scriptural case for cessationism, but alas, in thousands of words he does not manage to quote a single Scripture verse. In fact, he hardly is able to even provide any Scriptural references at all!
Astounding.
Astounding.
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WHEN our Lord came down to earth He drew heaven with Him. The signs which accompanied His ministry were but the trailing clouds of glory which He brought from heaven, which is His home. The number of the miracles which He wrought may easily be underrated. It has been said that in effect He banished disease and death from Palestine for the three years of His ministry. If this is exaggeration it is pardonable exaggeration. Wherever He went, He brought a blessing:
His own divine power by which He began to found His church He continued in the Apostles whom He had chosen to complete this great work. They transmitted it in turn, as part of their own miracle-working and the crowning sign of their divine commission, to others, in the form of what the New Testament calls spiritual gifts2 in the sense of extraordinary capacities produced in the early Christian communities by direct gift of the Holy Spirit.
The number and variety of these spiritual gifts were considerable. Even Paul’s enumerations, the fullest of which occurs in the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, can hardly be read as exhaustive scientific catalogues. The name which is commonly applied to them3 is broad enough to embrace what may be called both the ordinary and the specifically extraordinary gifts of the Spirit; both those, that is, which were distinctively gracious, and those which were distinctly miraculous. In fact, in the classical passage which treats of them (I Cor. 12-14) both classes are brought together under this name. The non-miraculous, gracious gifts are, indeed, in this passage given the preference and called “the greatest gifts”; and the search after them is represented as “the more excellent way”; the longing for the highest of them — faith, hope, and love — being the most excellent way of all. Among the miraculous gifts themselves, a like distinction is made in favor of “prophecy” (that is, the gift of exhortation and teaching), and, in general, in favor of those by which the body of Christ is edified.(With a flowery style to which we are unaccustomed in our day, our verbose author finally makes a point, and it is a stumble. In an unattributed assertion, he deems prophecy to be simply exhortation and teaching. This is false. Teaching and prophecy are separate, though related, gifts.
WHEN our Lord came down to earth He drew heaven with Him. The signs which accompanied His ministry were but the trailing clouds of glory which He brought from heaven, which is His home. The number of the miracles which He wrought may easily be underrated. It has been said that in effect He banished disease and death from Palestine for the three years of His ministry. If this is exaggeration it is pardonable exaggeration. Wherever He went, He brought a blessing:
One hem but of the garment that He woreWe ordinarily greatly underestimate His beneficent activity as He went about, as Luke says, doing good.’
Could medicine whole countries of their pain;
One touch of that pale hand could life restore.
His own divine power by which He began to found His church He continued in the Apostles whom He had chosen to complete this great work. They transmitted it in turn, as part of their own miracle-working and the crowning sign of their divine commission, to others, in the form of what the New Testament calls spiritual gifts2 in the sense of extraordinary capacities produced in the early Christian communities by direct gift of the Holy Spirit.
The number and variety of these spiritual gifts were considerable. Even Paul’s enumerations, the fullest of which occurs in the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, can hardly be read as exhaustive scientific catalogues. The name which is commonly applied to them3 is broad enough to embrace what may be called both the ordinary and the specifically extraordinary gifts of the Spirit; both those, that is, which were distinctively gracious, and those which were distinctly miraculous. In fact, in the classical passage which treats of them (I Cor. 12-14) both classes are brought together under this name. The non-miraculous, gracious gifts are, indeed, in this passage given the preference and called “the greatest gifts”; and the search after them is represented as “the more excellent way”; the longing for the highest of them — faith, hope, and love — being the most excellent way of all. Among the miraculous gifts themselves, a like distinction is made in favor of “prophecy” (that is, the gift of exhortation and teaching), and, in general, in favor of those by which the body of Christ is edified.(With a flowery style to which we are unaccustomed in our day, our verbose author finally makes a point, and it is a stumble. In an unattributed assertion, he deems prophecy to be simply exhortation and teaching. This is false. Teaching and prophecy are separate, though related, gifts.
Ro. 12:6-8 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
1Co. 12:28 And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.
Ep. 4:11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers...
Notice that prophecy and teaching are part of lists of gifts, distinct enough from each other to merit separate mention.)
(...)
(Now comes an Appeal to History, which of course has nothing to do with the biblical case for cessation of the charismata.) How long did this state of things continue? It was the characterizing peculiarity of specifically the Apostolic Church, and it belonged therefore exclusively to the Apostolic age — although no doubt this designation may be taken with some latitude. These gifts were not the possession of the primitive Christian as such;6 nor for that matter of the Apostolic Church or the Apostolic age for themselves; they were distinctively the authentication of the Apostles. (Unsupported assertion. On what scriptural basis should we conclude that the gifts were solely to authenticate the apostles? Perhaps there is a case to be made, but the author does not make it.)
They were part of the credentials of the Apostles as the authoritative agents of God in founding the church. Their function thus confined them to distinctively the Apostolic Church, and they necessarily passed away with it.7 (From an unsupported assertion comes an unsupported conclusion, again bereft of scriptural documentation.)
Of this we may make sure on the ground both of principle and of fact; that is to say both under the guidance of the New Testament teaching as to their origin and nature, and on the credit of the testimony of later ages as to their cessation. (The "testimony of later ages" is not a Scriptural argument. We can think of our own reasons for the lack of the supernatural in the post-apostolic church. Perhaps it was apostasy. Perhaps it was lack of faith. Perhaps it was the abandonment of elder-centered church leadership. Perhaps God intended the supernatural to continue on, but the church went its own way.
But I shall not stop at this point to adduce the proof of this. (Why not? It would certainly help us to ascertain the merit of the author's arguments.)
It will be sufficiently intimated in the criticism which I purpose to make of certain opposing opinions which have been current among students of the subject. My design is to state and examine the chief views which have been held favorable to the continuance of the charismata beyond the Apostolic age. In the process of this examination occasion will offer for noting whatever is needful to convince us that the possession of the charismata was confined to the Apostolic age.
(The author now embarks on a long explanation of other views, which he does not himself believe. We shall pass them by.)
(The author now embarks on a long explanation of other views, which he does not himself believe. We shall pass them by.)
(...)
But whence can we learn this to have been the end the miracles of the Apostolic age were intended to serve? Certainly not from the New Testament. In it not one word is ever dropped to this effect. Certain of the gifts (as, for example, the gift of tongues) are no doubt spoken of as “signs to those that are without.” It is required of all of them that they be exercised for the edification of the church; and a distinction is drawn between them in value, in proportion as they were for edification. But the immediate end for which they were given is not left doubtful, and that proves to be not directly the extension of the church, but the authentication of the Apostles as messengers from God. (The author repeats his assertion, but once again does not back it up.)
This does not mean, of course, that only the Apostles appear in the New Testament as working miracles, or that they alone are represented as recipients of the charismata. But it does mean that the charismata, belonged, in a true sense, to the Apostles, and constituted one of the signs of an Apostle. Only in the two great initial instances of the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost and the reception of Cornelius are charismata recorded as conferred without the laying on of the hands of Apostles.47 (Hmm. those are pretty substantial "exceptions" to the rule created by the author out of whole cloth.)
There is no instance on record of their conference by the laying on of the hands of any one else than an Apostle.48 The case of the Samaritans, recorded in the eighth chapter of Acts, is not only a very instructive one in itself, but may even be looked upon as the cardinal instance. The church had been propagated hitherto by the immediately evangelistic work of the Apostles themselves, and it had been accordingly the Apostles themselves who had received the converts into the church. Apparently they had all received the power of working signs by the laying on of the Apostles’ hands at their baptism. The Samaritans were the first converts to be gathered into the church by men who were not Apostles; and the signs of the Apostles were accordingly lacking to them until Peter and John were sent down to them that they might “receive the Holy Ghost” (Acts 8:14-17). The effect on Simon Magus of the sight of these gifts springing up on the laying on of the Apostles’ hands, we will all remember. The salient statements are very explicit. “Then laid they their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost.” “Now when Simon saw that through the laying on of the Apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given.” “Give me also this power, that, on whomsoever I lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.” It could not be more emphatically stated that the Holy Ghost was conferred by the laying on of the hands, specifically of the Apostles, and of the Apostles alone; (What about Timothy? He wasn't one of the Twelve, yet he was laying hands:
1Ti. 5:22 Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands...
And Timothy himself had hands laid on him by the "body of elders," not apostles:
1Ti. 4:14 Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.
We note also that the laying on of hands is one of the "elementary teachings," which seems to be a widespread practice in the early church:
He. 6:1-2 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
It would seem to be hard to justify that the passage of supernatural gifts only occurred by the hands of the apostles.)
what Simon is said to have seen is precisely that it was through the laying on of the hands of just the Apostles that the Holy Ghost was given. And there can be no question that it was specifically the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit that were in discussion; no doubt is thrown upon the genuineness of the conversion of the Samaritans; on the contrary, this is taken as a matter of course, and its assumption underlies the whole narrative; it constitutes in fact the very point of the narrative.
This case of the Samaritans was of great importance in the primitive church, to enable men to distinguish between the gifts of grace and the gifts of power. Without it there would have been danger that only those would be accredited as Christians who possessed extraordinary gifts. It is of equal importance to us, to teach us the source of the gifts of power, in the Apostles, apart from whom they were not conferred: as also their function, to authenticate the Apostles as the authoritative founders of the church. (These are all standard assertions made by cessationists, but Warfield is an "authoritative" theologian when it comes to these things. Why he reluctant to back his assertions with the Bible is anyone's guess.)
It is in accordance with this reading of the, significance of this incident, that Paul, who had all the signs of an Apostle, had also the power of conferring the charismata, and that in the entire New Testament we meet with no instance of the gifts showing themselves — after the initial instances of Pentecost and Cornelius — where an Apostle had not conveyed them. (Which we know is incorrect. We have already cited Timothy in opposition.)
Hermann Cremer is accordingly quite right when he says49 that “the Apostolic charismata bear the same relation to those of the ministry that the Apostolic office does to the pastoral office”; the extraordinary gifts belonged to the extraordinary office and showed themselves only in connection with its activities.50
The connection of the supernatural gifts with the Apostles is so obvious that one wonders that so many students have missed it, and have sought an account of them in some other quarter. (Hardly obvious, as we have seen.)
This case of the Samaritans was of great importance in the primitive church, to enable men to distinguish between the gifts of grace and the gifts of power. Without it there would have been danger that only those would be accredited as Christians who possessed extraordinary gifts. It is of equal importance to us, to teach us the source of the gifts of power, in the Apostles, apart from whom they were not conferred: as also their function, to authenticate the Apostles as the authoritative founders of the church. (These are all standard assertions made by cessationists, but Warfield is an "authoritative" theologian when it comes to these things. Why he reluctant to back his assertions with the Bible is anyone's guess.)
It is in accordance with this reading of the, significance of this incident, that Paul, who had all the signs of an Apostle, had also the power of conferring the charismata, and that in the entire New Testament we meet with no instance of the gifts showing themselves — after the initial instances of Pentecost and Cornelius — where an Apostle had not conveyed them. (Which we know is incorrect. We have already cited Timothy in opposition.)
Hermann Cremer is accordingly quite right when he says49 that “the Apostolic charismata bear the same relation to those of the ministry that the Apostolic office does to the pastoral office”; the extraordinary gifts belonged to the extraordinary office and showed themselves only in connection with its activities.50
The connection of the supernatural gifts with the Apostles is so obvious that one wonders that so many students have missed it, and have sought an account of them in some other quarter. (Hardly obvious, as we have seen.)
The true account has always been recognized, however, by some of the more careful students of the subject. It has been clearly set forth, for example, by Bishop Kaye. “I may be allowed to state the conclusion,” be writes,51 “to which I have myself been led by a comparison of the statements in the Book of Acts with the writings of the Fathers of the second century. My conclusion then is, that the power of working miracles was not extended beyond the disciples upon whom the Apostles conferred it by the imposition of their hands. As the number of these disciples gradually diminished, the instances of the exercise of miraculous powers became continually less frequent, and ceased entirely at the death of the last individual on whom the hands of the Apostles had been laid. (The author has now referenced several other theologians in support of his case. But, no scriptural documentation supplied.)
That event would, in the natural course of things, take place before the middle of the second century — at a time when Christianity, having obtained a footing in all the provinces of the Roman Empire, the miraculous gifts conferred upon the first teachers had performed their appropriate office — that of proving to the world that a new revelation had been given from heaven. What, then, would be the effect produced upon the minds of the great body of Christians by their gradual cessation? (A thesis the author has yet to document.)
Many would not observe, none would be willing to observe, it. . . . They who remarked the cessation of miracles would probably succeed in persuading themselves that it was only temporary and designed by an all-wise Providence to be the prelude to a more abundant effusion of the supernatural powers upon the church. Or if doubts and misgivings crossed their minds, they would still be unwilling to state a fact which might shake the steadfastness of their friends, and would certainly be urged by the enemies of the gospel as an argument against its divine origin. They would pursue the plan which has been pursued by Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Irenæus, etc.; they would have recourse to general assertions of the existence of supernatural powers, without attempting to produce a specific instance of their exercise. . . .” The bishop then proceeds to recapitulate the main points and grounds of this theory.52
Whatever we may think of the specific explanation which Bishop Kaye presents of the language of the second-century Fathers, we can scarcely fail to perceive that the confinement of the supernatural gifts by the Scriptures to those who had them conferred upon them by the Apostles, affords a ready explanation of all the historical facts. It explains the unobserved dying out of these gifts. It even explains — what might at first sight seem inconsistent with it — the failure of allusion to them in the first half of the second century. The great missionary Apostles, Paul and Peter, had passed away by A. D. 68, and apparently only John was left in extreme old age until the last decade of the first century. The number of those upon whom the hands of Apostles had been laid, living still in the second century, cannot have been very large. We know of course of John’s pupil Polycarp; we may add perhaps an Ignatius, a Papias, a Clement, possibly a Hermas, or even a Leucius; but at the most there are few of whom we know with any definiteness. That Justin and Irenæus and their contemporaries allude to miracle-working as a thing which had to their knowledge existed in their day, and yet with which they seem to have little exact personal acquaintance, is also explained. Irenæus’s youth was spent in the company of pupils of the Apostles; Justin may easily have known of, if not even witnessed, miracles wrought by Apostolically trained men. The fault of these writers need have been no more than a failure to observe, or to acknowledge, the cessation of these miracles during their own time; so that it is riot so much the trustworthiness of their testimony as their understanding of the changing times which falls under criticism. If we once lay firm hold upon the biblical principle which governed the distribution of the miraculous gifts, in a word, we find that we have in our hands a key which unlocks all the historical puzzles connected with them.
There is, of course, a deeper principle recognizable here, of which the actual attachment of the charismata of the Apostolic Church to the mission of the Apostles is but an illustration. This deeper principle may be reached by us through the perception, more broadly, of the inseparable connection of miracles with revelation, as its mark and credential; or, more narrowly, of the summing up of all revelation, finally, in Jesus Christ. Miracles do not appear on the page of Scripture vagrantly, here, there, and elsewhere indifferently, without assignable reason. (Of course they don't. Since we know Jesus did so many miracles that all the books in the world could not contain them, and since we know that miracles were common in the apostolic church, there is no possible way we would have access to all of them.
We don't have Paul's letter to Laodicea. (Col 4:16). We don't have another letter Paul wrote to the Corinthian church (1Co. 5:9). We don't know what Paul wrote to the church Peter referenced (2Pe. 3:15). Everything in the Bible appears there according to God's purpose.
But that doesn't mean the Bible is an account of everything that happened.)
They belong to revelation periods, and appear only when God is speaking to His people through accredited messengers, declaring His gracious purposes. (It gets tiring to read these assertions for which no documentation appears. There is no such thing as "revelation periods." It is preposterous to suggest that God was not speaking simply because it isn't recorded in Scripture. This is nothing more than a gigantic Argument from Silence.)
Their abundant display in the Apostolic Church is the mark of the richness of the Apostolic age in revelation; and when this revelation period closed, the period of miracle-working had passed by also, as a mere matter of course. (I now will simply begin to issue summary denials: No it didn't.)
It might, indeed, be a priori conceivable that God should deal with men atomistically, and reveal Himself and His will to each individual, throughout the whole course of history, in the penetralium of his own consciousness. This is the mystic’s dream. It has not, however, been God’s way. He has chosen rather to deal with the race in its entirety, and to give to this race His complete revelation of Himself in an organic whole. And when this historic process of organic revelation had reached its completeness, and when the whole knowledge of God designed for the saving health of the world had been incorporated into the living body of the world’s thought — there remained, of course, no further revelation to be made, and there has been, accordingly no further revelation made. (No He didn't.)
God the Holy Spirit has made it His subsequent work, not to introduce new and unneeded revelations into the world, but to diffuse this one complete revelation through the world and to bring mankind into the saving knowledge of it. (No He didn't.)
As Abraham Kuyper figuratively expresses it,53 it has not been God’s way to communicate to each and every man a separate store of divine knowledge of his own, to meet his separate needs; but He rather has spread a common board for all, and invites all to come and partake of the richness of the great feast. (No He didn't.)
He has given to the world one organically complete revelation, adapted to all, sufficient for all, provided for all, and from this one completed revelation He requires each to draw his whole spiritual sustenance. (No He didn't.)
Therefore it is that the miraculous working which is but the sign of God’s revealing power, cannot be expected to continue, and in point of fact does not continue, after the revelation of which it is the accompaniment has been completed. It is unreasonable to ask miracles, says John Calvin — or to find them — where there is no new gospel.54 By as much as the one gospel suffices for all lands and all peoples and all times, by so much does the miraculous attestation of that one single gospel suffice for all lands and all times, and no further miracles are to be expected in connection with it. “According to the Scriptures,” Herman Bavinck explains,55 “special revelation has been delivered in the form of a historical process, which reaches its end-point in the person and work of Christ. (No it didn't.)
When Christ had appeared and returned again to heaven, special revelation did not, indeed, come at once to an end. There was yet to follow the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and the extraordinary working of the powers and gifts through and under the guidance of the Apostolate. The Scriptures undoubtedly reckon all this to the sphere of special revelation, and the continuance of this revelation was necessary to give abiding existence in the world to the special revelation which reached its climax in Christ — abiding existence both in the word of Scripture and in the life of the church. Truth and life, prophecy and miracle, word and deed, inspiration and regeneration go hand in hand in the completion of special revelation. But when the revelation of God in Christ had taken place, and had become in Scripture and church a constituent part of the cosmos, then another era began. (No it didn't.)
As before everything was a preparation for Christ, so afterward everything is to be a consequence of Christ. Then Christ was being framed into the Head of His people, now His people are being framed into the Body of Christ. Then the Scriptures were being produced, now they are being applied. New constituent elements of special revelation can no longer be added; for Christ has come, His work has been done, and His word is complete.” Had any miracles perchance occurred beyond the Apostolic age they would be without significance; mere occurrences with no universal meaning. What is important is that “the Holy Scriptures teach clearly that the complete revelation of God is given in Christ, and that the Holy Spirit who is poured out on the people of God has come solely in order to glorify Christ and to take of the things of Christ.” Because Christ is all in all, and all revelation and redemption alike are summed up in Him, it would be inconceivable that either revelation or its accompanying signs should continue after the completion of that great revelation with its accrediting works, by which Christ has been established in His rightful place as the culmination and climax and all-inclusive summary of the saving revelation of God, the sole and sufficient redeemer of His people.
At this point we might fairly rest. But I cannot deny myself the pleasure of giving you some account in this connection of a famous book on the subject we have been discussing — to which indeed incidental allusion has been made. I refer to Conyers Middleton’s A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian church from the earliest ages through several successive centuries. By which it is shown that we have no sufficient reason to believe, upon the authority of the primitive fathers, that any such powers were continued to the church, after the days of the Apostles. Middleton was a doughty controversialist, no less admired for his English style, which was reckoned by his contemporaries as second in purity to that of no writer of his day except Addison (though John Wesley more justly found it stiff and pedantic), than feared for the sharpness and persistency of his polemics. He was of a somewhat sceptical temper and perhaps cannot be acquitted of a certain amount of insincerity. We could wish at least that it were clearer that John Wesley’s description of him were undeserved, as “aiming every blow, though he seems to look another way, at the fanatics who wrote the Bible.”56 In this, his chief theological work, however, Middleton had a subject where scepticism found a proper mark, and he performs his congenial task with distinct ability. His controversial spirit and a certain harshness of tone, while they may detract from the pleasure with which the book is read, do not destroy its value as a solid piece of investigation.
Conscious of the boldness of the views he was about to advocate and foreseeing their unpopularity, Middleton sent forth in 1747 as a sort of preparation for what was to come an Introductory discourse to a larger work designed hereafter to be published, concerning the miraculous powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian church from the earliest ages through several successive centuries; tending to show that we have no sufficient reason to believe upon the authority of the primitive fathers, that any such powers were continued to the church after the days of the Apostles. With a postscript . . . (London, 1747). In this Discourse he points out the helplessness of the Anglican position in the face of Romish claims. There is no reason for allowing miracles for the first three centuries which is not as good or better for allowing them for the succeeding centuries: and yet the greater portion of the miracles of these later centuries were wrought in support of distinctively Romish teaching, which, it would seem, must be accepted, if their attesting miracles are allowed. Next year (1748) he published Remarks on two Pamphlets . . ., which had appeared in reply to his Introductory Discourse; and at length in December, 1748, he permitted the Free Inquiry itself to see the light, fitted with a preface in which an account is given of the origin of the book, and the position taken up in the Introductory Discourse is pressed more sharply still — that the genuineness of the ecclesiastical miracles being once allowed, no stopping-place can be found until the whole series of alleged miracles down to our own day be admitted. At the end of this preface Middleton’s own view as to the cause of the cessation of the spiritual gifts is intimated, and this proves to be only a modification of the current Anglican opinion — that miracles subsisted until the church had been founded in all the chief cities of the empire, which, he held, had been accomplished in the Apostolic times. It is interesting to observe thus that Middleton reached his correct conclusion as to the time of the cessation of these gifts without the help of a right understanding of the true reason of their cessation with the Apostolic age; purely, that is to say, on empirical grounds.
The Free Inquiry itself is a scholarly piece of work for its time, and a competent argument. It is disposed in five parts. The first of these simply draws out from the sources and presents in full the testimony to miraculous working found in the Fathers of the first three centuries. The meagreness and indefiniteness of their witness are left to speak for themselves, with only the help of two closing remarks. The one of these presses the impossibility of believing that the gifts were first withdrawn during the first fifty years of the second century and then restored. The other contrasts the patristic miracles with those of the New Testament, with respect both to their nature and the mode of their working. The second section discusses the persons who worked the ecclesiastical miracles. It is pointed out that no known writer claims to have himself wrought miracles, or names any of his predecessors as having done so. The honor is left to unknown and obscure men, and afterward to the “rotten bones” of saints who while living did no such works. The third section subjects the character of the early Fathers as men of wisdom and trustworthiness to a severe and not always perfectly fair criticism, with a view to lessening the credit that should be given to their testimony in such a matter as the occurrence of miraculous workings in their day. The fourth section then takes up the several kinds of miracles which, it is pretended, were wrought, and seeks to determine from the nature of each, in each instance of its mention, whether its credibility may be reasonably suspected. Finally, in the fifth section, the principal objections which had been raised, or which seemed likely to be raised, to the tenor of the argument are cited and refuted.
The book was received with a storm of criticism, reprobation, even abuse. It was not refuted. Many published careful and searching examinations of its facts and arguments, among others Doctor William Dodwell57 (the younger) and Doctor Thomas Church,58 to whom Middleton replied in a Vindication, published posthumously (1751). After a century and a half the book remains unrefuted, and, indeed, despite the faults arising from the writer’s spirit and the limitations inseparable from the state of scholarship in his day, its main contention seems to be put beyond dispute.59
****************
(I finally gave up. Endless dense prose coupled with dangling assertions from a supposed distinguished theologian became too much for me.)
Notes
(...)
Many would not observe, none would be willing to observe, it. . . . They who remarked the cessation of miracles would probably succeed in persuading themselves that it was only temporary and designed by an all-wise Providence to be the prelude to a more abundant effusion of the supernatural powers upon the church. Or if doubts and misgivings crossed their minds, they would still be unwilling to state a fact which might shake the steadfastness of their friends, and would certainly be urged by the enemies of the gospel as an argument against its divine origin. They would pursue the plan which has been pursued by Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Irenæus, etc.; they would have recourse to general assertions of the existence of supernatural powers, without attempting to produce a specific instance of their exercise. . . .” The bishop then proceeds to recapitulate the main points and grounds of this theory.52
Whatever we may think of the specific explanation which Bishop Kaye presents of the language of the second-century Fathers, we can scarcely fail to perceive that the confinement of the supernatural gifts by the Scriptures to those who had them conferred upon them by the Apostles, affords a ready explanation of all the historical facts. It explains the unobserved dying out of these gifts. It even explains — what might at first sight seem inconsistent with it — the failure of allusion to them in the first half of the second century. The great missionary Apostles, Paul and Peter, had passed away by A. D. 68, and apparently only John was left in extreme old age until the last decade of the first century. The number of those upon whom the hands of Apostles had been laid, living still in the second century, cannot have been very large. We know of course of John’s pupil Polycarp; we may add perhaps an Ignatius, a Papias, a Clement, possibly a Hermas, or even a Leucius; but at the most there are few of whom we know with any definiteness. That Justin and Irenæus and their contemporaries allude to miracle-working as a thing which had to their knowledge existed in their day, and yet with which they seem to have little exact personal acquaintance, is also explained. Irenæus’s youth was spent in the company of pupils of the Apostles; Justin may easily have known of, if not even witnessed, miracles wrought by Apostolically trained men. The fault of these writers need have been no more than a failure to observe, or to acknowledge, the cessation of these miracles during their own time; so that it is riot so much the trustworthiness of their testimony as their understanding of the changing times which falls under criticism. If we once lay firm hold upon the biblical principle which governed the distribution of the miraculous gifts, in a word, we find that we have in our hands a key which unlocks all the historical puzzles connected with them.
There is, of course, a deeper principle recognizable here, of which the actual attachment of the charismata of the Apostolic Church to the mission of the Apostles is but an illustration. This deeper principle may be reached by us through the perception, more broadly, of the inseparable connection of miracles with revelation, as its mark and credential; or, more narrowly, of the summing up of all revelation, finally, in Jesus Christ. Miracles do not appear on the page of Scripture vagrantly, here, there, and elsewhere indifferently, without assignable reason. (Of course they don't. Since we know Jesus did so many miracles that all the books in the world could not contain them, and since we know that miracles were common in the apostolic church, there is no possible way we would have access to all of them.
We don't have Paul's letter to Laodicea. (Col 4:16). We don't have another letter Paul wrote to the Corinthian church (1Co. 5:9). We don't know what Paul wrote to the church Peter referenced (2Pe. 3:15). Everything in the Bible appears there according to God's purpose.
But that doesn't mean the Bible is an account of everything that happened.)
They belong to revelation periods, and appear only when God is speaking to His people through accredited messengers, declaring His gracious purposes. (It gets tiring to read these assertions for which no documentation appears. There is no such thing as "revelation periods." It is preposterous to suggest that God was not speaking simply because it isn't recorded in Scripture. This is nothing more than a gigantic Argument from Silence.)
Their abundant display in the Apostolic Church is the mark of the richness of the Apostolic age in revelation; and when this revelation period closed, the period of miracle-working had passed by also, as a mere matter of course. (I now will simply begin to issue summary denials: No it didn't.)
It might, indeed, be a priori conceivable that God should deal with men atomistically, and reveal Himself and His will to each individual, throughout the whole course of history, in the penetralium of his own consciousness. This is the mystic’s dream. It has not, however, been God’s way. He has chosen rather to deal with the race in its entirety, and to give to this race His complete revelation of Himself in an organic whole. And when this historic process of organic revelation had reached its completeness, and when the whole knowledge of God designed for the saving health of the world had been incorporated into the living body of the world’s thought — there remained, of course, no further revelation to be made, and there has been, accordingly no further revelation made. (No He didn't.)
God the Holy Spirit has made it His subsequent work, not to introduce new and unneeded revelations into the world, but to diffuse this one complete revelation through the world and to bring mankind into the saving knowledge of it. (No He didn't.)
As Abraham Kuyper figuratively expresses it,53 it has not been God’s way to communicate to each and every man a separate store of divine knowledge of his own, to meet his separate needs; but He rather has spread a common board for all, and invites all to come and partake of the richness of the great feast. (No He didn't.)
He has given to the world one organically complete revelation, adapted to all, sufficient for all, provided for all, and from this one completed revelation He requires each to draw his whole spiritual sustenance. (No He didn't.)
Therefore it is that the miraculous working which is but the sign of God’s revealing power, cannot be expected to continue, and in point of fact does not continue, after the revelation of which it is the accompaniment has been completed. It is unreasonable to ask miracles, says John Calvin — or to find them — where there is no new gospel.54 By as much as the one gospel suffices for all lands and all peoples and all times, by so much does the miraculous attestation of that one single gospel suffice for all lands and all times, and no further miracles are to be expected in connection with it. “According to the Scriptures,” Herman Bavinck explains,55 “special revelation has been delivered in the form of a historical process, which reaches its end-point in the person and work of Christ. (No it didn't.)
When Christ had appeared and returned again to heaven, special revelation did not, indeed, come at once to an end. There was yet to follow the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and the extraordinary working of the powers and gifts through and under the guidance of the Apostolate. The Scriptures undoubtedly reckon all this to the sphere of special revelation, and the continuance of this revelation was necessary to give abiding existence in the world to the special revelation which reached its climax in Christ — abiding existence both in the word of Scripture and in the life of the church. Truth and life, prophecy and miracle, word and deed, inspiration and regeneration go hand in hand in the completion of special revelation. But when the revelation of God in Christ had taken place, and had become in Scripture and church a constituent part of the cosmos, then another era began. (No it didn't.)
As before everything was a preparation for Christ, so afterward everything is to be a consequence of Christ. Then Christ was being framed into the Head of His people, now His people are being framed into the Body of Christ. Then the Scriptures were being produced, now they are being applied. New constituent elements of special revelation can no longer be added; for Christ has come, His work has been done, and His word is complete.” Had any miracles perchance occurred beyond the Apostolic age they would be without significance; mere occurrences with no universal meaning. What is important is that “the Holy Scriptures teach clearly that the complete revelation of God is given in Christ, and that the Holy Spirit who is poured out on the people of God has come solely in order to glorify Christ and to take of the things of Christ.” Because Christ is all in all, and all revelation and redemption alike are summed up in Him, it would be inconceivable that either revelation or its accompanying signs should continue after the completion of that great revelation with its accrediting works, by which Christ has been established in His rightful place as the culmination and climax and all-inclusive summary of the saving revelation of God, the sole and sufficient redeemer of His people.
At this point we might fairly rest. But I cannot deny myself the pleasure of giving you some account in this connection of a famous book on the subject we have been discussing — to which indeed incidental allusion has been made. I refer to Conyers Middleton’s A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian church from the earliest ages through several successive centuries. By which it is shown that we have no sufficient reason to believe, upon the authority of the primitive fathers, that any such powers were continued to the church, after the days of the Apostles. Middleton was a doughty controversialist, no less admired for his English style, which was reckoned by his contemporaries as second in purity to that of no writer of his day except Addison (though John Wesley more justly found it stiff and pedantic), than feared for the sharpness and persistency of his polemics. He was of a somewhat sceptical temper and perhaps cannot be acquitted of a certain amount of insincerity. We could wish at least that it were clearer that John Wesley’s description of him were undeserved, as “aiming every blow, though he seems to look another way, at the fanatics who wrote the Bible.”56 In this, his chief theological work, however, Middleton had a subject where scepticism found a proper mark, and he performs his congenial task with distinct ability. His controversial spirit and a certain harshness of tone, while they may detract from the pleasure with which the book is read, do not destroy its value as a solid piece of investigation.
Conscious of the boldness of the views he was about to advocate and foreseeing their unpopularity, Middleton sent forth in 1747 as a sort of preparation for what was to come an Introductory discourse to a larger work designed hereafter to be published, concerning the miraculous powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian church from the earliest ages through several successive centuries; tending to show that we have no sufficient reason to believe upon the authority of the primitive fathers, that any such powers were continued to the church after the days of the Apostles. With a postscript . . . (London, 1747). In this Discourse he points out the helplessness of the Anglican position in the face of Romish claims. There is no reason for allowing miracles for the first three centuries which is not as good or better for allowing them for the succeeding centuries: and yet the greater portion of the miracles of these later centuries were wrought in support of distinctively Romish teaching, which, it would seem, must be accepted, if their attesting miracles are allowed. Next year (1748) he published Remarks on two Pamphlets . . ., which had appeared in reply to his Introductory Discourse; and at length in December, 1748, he permitted the Free Inquiry itself to see the light, fitted with a preface in which an account is given of the origin of the book, and the position taken up in the Introductory Discourse is pressed more sharply still — that the genuineness of the ecclesiastical miracles being once allowed, no stopping-place can be found until the whole series of alleged miracles down to our own day be admitted. At the end of this preface Middleton’s own view as to the cause of the cessation of the spiritual gifts is intimated, and this proves to be only a modification of the current Anglican opinion — that miracles subsisted until the church had been founded in all the chief cities of the empire, which, he held, had been accomplished in the Apostolic times. It is interesting to observe thus that Middleton reached his correct conclusion as to the time of the cessation of these gifts without the help of a right understanding of the true reason of their cessation with the Apostolic age; purely, that is to say, on empirical grounds.
The Free Inquiry itself is a scholarly piece of work for its time, and a competent argument. It is disposed in five parts. The first of these simply draws out from the sources and presents in full the testimony to miraculous working found in the Fathers of the first three centuries. The meagreness and indefiniteness of their witness are left to speak for themselves, with only the help of two closing remarks. The one of these presses the impossibility of believing that the gifts were first withdrawn during the first fifty years of the second century and then restored. The other contrasts the patristic miracles with those of the New Testament, with respect both to their nature and the mode of their working. The second section discusses the persons who worked the ecclesiastical miracles. It is pointed out that no known writer claims to have himself wrought miracles, or names any of his predecessors as having done so. The honor is left to unknown and obscure men, and afterward to the “rotten bones” of saints who while living did no such works. The third section subjects the character of the early Fathers as men of wisdom and trustworthiness to a severe and not always perfectly fair criticism, with a view to lessening the credit that should be given to their testimony in such a matter as the occurrence of miraculous workings in their day. The fourth section then takes up the several kinds of miracles which, it is pretended, were wrought, and seeks to determine from the nature of each, in each instance of its mention, whether its credibility may be reasonably suspected. Finally, in the fifth section, the principal objections which had been raised, or which seemed likely to be raised, to the tenor of the argument are cited and refuted.
The book was received with a storm of criticism, reprobation, even abuse. It was not refuted. Many published careful and searching examinations of its facts and arguments, among others Doctor William Dodwell57 (the younger) and Doctor Thomas Church,58 to whom Middleton replied in a Vindication, published posthumously (1751). After a century and a half the book remains unrefuted, and, indeed, despite the faults arising from the writer’s spirit and the limitations inseparable from the state of scholarship in his day, its main contention seems to be put beyond dispute.59
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(I finally gave up. Endless dense prose coupled with dangling assertions from a supposed distinguished theologian became too much for me.)
Notes
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6. Theologians of the “Liberal” school, of course, deny the miraculous character of the charisms on principle, and are prone to represent them as the natural manifestations of primitive enthusiasm. “We, for our part,” says P. W. Schmiedel (Encyclopedia Biblica, col. 4776), “are constrained to” “deny the miraculous character of the charisma,” “and to account for everything in the phenomena to which a miraculous character has been attributed by the known psychological laws which can be observed in crises of great mental exaltation, whether in persons who deem themselves inspired, or in persons who simply require medical treatment.” From this point of view the charismata belong to the primitive church as such, to the church not merely of the Apostolic age, but of the first two centuries. This church is spoken of in contrast to the staid, organized church which succeeded it, as a Charismatic Church, that is to say, in the old sense of the word, as an Enthusiastic Church, a church swept along by an exalted state of mind and feeling which we should look upon today as mere fanaticism. “It is easily intelligible,” says Schmiedel (col. 4775), “that the joy of enthusiasm over the possession of a new redeeming religion should have expressed itself in an exuberant way, which, according to the ideas of the time, could only be regarded as the miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit.” Or, as Adolf Harnack (The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, E. T. 1., pp. 250 ff.), puts it, Christianity came into being as “the religion of Spirit and power,” and only lost this character and became the religion of form and order toward the end of the second century. A rather sharp expression of this view is given in an (inaugural) address delivered in 1893 by A. C. McGiffert, on Primitive and Catholic Christianity. “The spirit of primitive Christianity,” he says (p. 19), “is the spirit of individualism, based on the felt presence of the Holy Ghost. It was the universal conviction of the primitive church that every Christian believer enjoys the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit, through whom he communes with God, and receives illumination, inspiration and strength for his daily needs. The presence of the Spirit was realized by these primitive Christians in a most vivid way. It meant the power to work miracles, to speak with tongues, to utter prophecies (cf. Mark 16:17, 18, and Acts 2:16 ff.).” McGiffert is not describing here some Christians, but all Christians; and all Christians not of the Apostolic age, but of the first two centuries: “By the opening of the third century all these conceptions had practically disappeared.” An attempt to give this general view a less naturalistic expression may be read at the close of R. Martin Pope’s article, “Gifts,” in Hastings’s Dictionary of the Apostolic Church. “To sum up,” he writes (vol. I, p. 451), “an examination of the passages in apostolic literature which treat of spiritual gifts inevitably brings us to the conclusion that the life of the early church was characterized by glowing enthusiasm, simple faith, and intensity of joy and wonder, all resulting from the consciousness of the power of the Holy Spirit; also that this phase of Spirit-effected ministries and service was temporary, as such ‘tides of the Spirit’ have since often proved, and gave way to a more rigid and disciplined Church Order, in which the official tended more and more to supersede the charismatic ministries.”
It has always been the characteristic mark of a Christian that he is “led by the Spirit of God”: “if any man bath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.” It has never been the mark of a Christian that because he is “led by the Spirit of God” he is a law to himself and free from the ordinances of God’s house. It is very clear from the record of the New Testament that the extraordinary charismata were not (after the very first days of the church) the possession of all Christians, but special supernatural gifts to the few; and it is equally clear from the records of the sub-Apostolic church that they did not continue in it, but only a shadow of them lingered in doubtful manifestations of which we must say, Do not even the heathen so? How little this whole representation accords with the facts the progress of the present discussion will show. For an examination of McGiffert’s position, see The Presbyterian Quarterly, April, 1895, pp. 185-194. For a vivid popular description of conditions in the early church as reconstructed from the “Liberal” viewpoint, and brought into relation to the “enthusiasm” of later centuries, see The Edinburgh Review for January, 1903, pp. 548 ff.
7. R. Martin Pope, as cited, p. 450, speaks of modes of ministry, “in addition to the more stable and authorized modes” mentioned in I Cor. 1:4-12, 28, which were of “a special order, perhaps peculiar to the Corinthian Church, with its exuberant manifestations of spiritual energy, and certainly, as the evidence of later Church History shows, of a temporary character, and exhausting themselves (cf. H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the N. T., London, 1909, p. 320) in the Apostolic or sub-Apostolic age.” In contrast with these special modes of ministry, he speaks of “the charisms of miracle-working as lasting down to the second century, if we may trust the evidence of Justin Martyr (Apol., 2:6).” In the passage of Justin appealed to, as also in section 8, and in Dial., 30, 76, 85, it is said only that demoniacs are exorcised by Christians; cf. G. T. Purves, The Testimony of Justin Martyr to Early Christianity, 1889, p. 159. We shall see that the evidence of the second and subsequent centuries is not such as naturally to base Pope’s conclusion. When he adds of these “charisms of miracle-working” that “they never were intended, as the extreme faith-healer of today contends, to supersede the efforts of the skilled physician,” he is of course right, since they were confined to the Apostolic age, and to a very narrow circle then. But when he goes on to say, “they represent the creative gift, the power of initiating new departures in the normal world of phenomena, which is rooted in faith (see A. G. Hogg, Christ’s Message of the Kingdom, Edinburgh, 1911, pp. 62-70); and as such reveal a principle which holds good for all time” — he is speaking wholly without book, and relatively to the charisms of the New Testament equally wholly without meaning.
(...)
47. John Lightfoot (Works, Pittman’s 8 vol. ed., vol. III, p. 204) suggests as the reason for these two exceptions: “The Holy Ghost at this its first bestowing upon the Gentiles is given in the like manner as it was at its first bestowing on the Jewish nation, — namely, by immediate infusion; at all other times you find mention of it, you find mention of imposition of hands used for it.”
48. Acts 9:12-17 is no exception, as is sometimes said; Ananias worked a miracle on Paul but did not confer miracle-working powers. Paul’s own power of miracle-working was original with him as an Apostle, and not conferred by any one.
49. Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1st edition, vol. II, p. 873.
50. The connection of the “signs and wonders and manifold powers of the Holy Ghost” in some particular fashion with the first generation of Christians — “them that heard” the Lord, that is to say, at least the Apostolic generation, possibly specifically the Apostles — seems to be implied in Heb. 2:4. That Paul regards the charismata as “credentials of the Apostolic mission” (possibly even Rom. 1:11 may be cited here) is clear even to J. A. MacCulloch (Hastings’s E R E., VIII, p. 683 b), although he himself doubts the soundness of this view. A. Schlatter (Hastings’s Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, I, 577 a) says with great distinctness: “The Gospels, the Book of Acts, and the utterances of St. Paul regarding his ‘signs’ (II Cor. 12:12), all show distinctly that miracles were intimately related to the Apostolic function.”
51. The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries, Illustrated from the Writings of Tertullian, 1825; 2d ed., 1826; 3d ed., 1845, pp. 98 ff.
52. Bernard, as cited, p. 130, gives his acceptance to Kaye’s view, speaking of “that power which in the days of the Apostles was confined to them and those on whom they had laid their hands.” B. F. Manire, in an article on the “Work of the Holy Spirit,” in The New Christian Quarterly, IV, 2, p. 38 (April, 1895), gives exceptionally clear expression to the facts: “The matter of imparting the Holy Ghost through the laying on of their hands, belonged exclusively, as it appears to me, to the Apostles, and therefore passed away with them. . . . Others besides the Apostles could preach the Gospel ‘with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven,’ and could work miracles in confirmation of their testimony; but only the Apostles by the imposition of their own hands could impart the Holy Spirit to others in its wonder-working power. To me it appears that the bestowal of this power on the Apostles was the highest testimonial of their official character and authority.” Paton J. Gloag comments on Acts 8:15-16 thus: “By the Holy Ghost here is not to be understood the ordinary or sanctifying influences of the Spirit. The Samaritans, in the act of believing the gospel, received the Holy Ghost in this sense. . . . The miraculous influences of the Spirit, which are manifested by speaking with tongues and prophesyings, are here meant. As Calvin remarks, ‘He speaks not in this place of the common grace of the Spirit, whereby God regenerates us that we may be His children, but of those singular gifts whereby God would have certain endowed, at the beginning of the Gospel, to beautify the Kingdom of Christ.’ But the question arises, Why could not Philip bestow the Holy Ghost? . . . The common opinion appears to be the correct one — namely, that Philip could not bestow the Holy Ghost because he was not an Apostle. This, though not expressly stated, yet seems implied in the narrative. So Chrysostom and Epiphanius among the fathers, and Grotius, Lightfoot, DeWette, Baumgarten, Meyer, Olshausen, and Wordsworth among the moderns.” John Lightfoot holds that the charismata were not conferred indiscriminately on all but only on a select few, to endow them (a plurality in each church) for the office of “minister.” But that these gifts were conferred only by laying on the Apostles’ hands he is clear. Cf. Works, ed. Pittman, vol. III, p. 30: “To give the Holy Ghost was a peculiar prerogative of the Apostles”; vol. III, p. 194, commenting on Acts 8: “Philip baptized Samaritans and did great wonders among them, but could not bestow the Holy Ghost upon them: that power belonged only to the Apostles; therefore Peter and John are sent thither for that purpose.”
53. Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology, E. T., 1898, p. 368; cf. pp. 355 ff.
54. Institutes of the Christian Religion, E. T., by John Allen; ed. Philadelphia, 1909, vol. I, pp. 26 ff.: “Their requiring miracles of us is altogether unreasonable; for we forge no new Gospel, but retain the very same whose truth was confirmed by all the miracles ever wrought by Christ and the Apostles” — and so forth.
55. Gereformeerde Dogmatiek2, I, pp. 363 f.
56. On Wesley’s relations with Middleton, see F. J. Snell, Wesley and Methodism, 1900, pp. 151 ff.
Free Answer to Dr. Middleton’s Free Inquiry, etc., 1749.
Free Answer to Dr. Middleton’s Free Inquiry, etc., 1749.
58. A Vindication of the Miraculous Powers which Subsisted in the Three First Centuries of the Christian Church, 1750. Chapman’s Miraculous Powers of the Primitive Church, 1752 (following up his Discovery of the Miraculous Powers of the Primitive Church, 1747) came too late to be included in Middleton’s Vindication.
59. The literature of the subject has been intimated in the course of the lecture. By the side of Middleton’s Free Inquiry may be placed J. Douglas, The Criterion; or rules by which the True Miracles recorded in the New Testament are distinguished from the Spurious miracles of Pagans and Papists, 1752, new edd. 1857, etc., 1867; and Isaac Taylor, Ancient Christianity, 1839; ed. 4, 5844, vol. II, pp. 233-365. Cf. also Lecture VIII in J. B. Mozley, Eight Lectures on Miracles, 1865. Of J. H. Newman’s Two Essays on Scripture Miracles and on Ecclesiastical, some account will be given in the next lecture. By its side should be placed Horace Bushnell’s eloquent argument for the continuation of miracles in the church in the fourteenth chapter of his Nature and the Supernatural (1858; ed. 4, 1859, pp. 446-492).
Author
Fifty years after his death B.B. Warfield's witness remains a powerful influence in mainstream Christianity simply because no successor has attained to his eminence as a biblical theologian. In his years at Princeton, 1886-1921, he was unquestionably the best-known opponent of the rationalism and anti-supernaturalism which threatened the life of the Church in the 20th Century; for him a non-miraculous Christianity was no Christianity at all. But with his breadth of vision, Warfield also saw the danger of false claims to the possession of miraculous gifts — claims which have repeatedly been made both by the Church of Rome and by groups within Protestantism. That the apostles possessed special divine gifts, and that they could be conferred by their hands, is plain; so also is it plain, argued Warfield, that the claimants to the same charismata since the apostolic age have never been genuine.
This article is taken from Warfield's book, Counterfeit Miracles, first published in 1918.
Author
Fifty years after his death B.B. Warfield's witness remains a powerful influence in mainstream Christianity simply because no successor has attained to his eminence as a biblical theologian. In his years at Princeton, 1886-1921, he was unquestionably the best-known opponent of the rationalism and anti-supernaturalism which threatened the life of the Church in the 20th Century; for him a non-miraculous Christianity was no Christianity at all. But with his breadth of vision, Warfield also saw the danger of false claims to the possession of miraculous gifts — claims which have repeatedly been made both by the Church of Rome and by groups within Protestantism. That the apostles possessed special divine gifts, and that they could be conferred by their hands, is plain; so also is it plain, argued Warfield, that the claimants to the same charismata since the apostolic age have never been genuine.
This article is taken from Warfield's book, Counterfeit Miracles, first published in 1918.
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